


(not) making promises

by mothwrites



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Heart-to-Heart, Insomnia, Multi, Polyamory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-18
Updated: 2015-04-18
Packaged: 2018-03-23 14:38:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 822
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3771982
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mothwrites/pseuds/mothwrites
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Matt and Karen share many things in common: insomnia, secrets, and a fondness for hot chocolate.</p>
            </blockquote>





	(not) making promises

Matt studies breathing. Not because he particularly likes to, but the noise of the city keeps him up and instead of focusing on the pain, on the shouts and sirens on the streets, he listens to the sounds of his lovers breathing beside him. He knows the rhythm of Foggy’s sleep by heart; short snuffled breaths, a little snore, a smacking of the lips, repeat. Tonight was no different, a reassuring weight of warmth and comfort on his left side.

On his other side lay Karen, head over his heart, trying very hard to look asleep. Matt wasn’t sure who she was trying to convince, him or herself, but her long, peaceful breaths were too calculated. Occasionally she sighed and adjusted herself as she tried to drift off, but Matt had spent enough nights by her side to know a lost cause when he heard one. He judged the distance, reached over and ran his thumb over the alarm clock on the bedside table. 1:55 am.

“Hot chocolate?” He murmured, unmoving. There was a pause.

“Please,” Karen whispered back. Foggy slept like the dead, always had done, so Karen and Matt extracted themselves without too much difficulty. Karen shrugged on a shirt, and the scent of her in Foggy’s clothes delayed them for a while as Matt wrapped his arms around her from behind and buried his head in the crook of her neck. Karen laughed softly, enclosing his fingers in her palms.

“Counsellor, I was promised chocolate.”

“Indeed you were,” he agreed, extracting himself. They made their way to the kitchen, Karen giggling on her tiptoes, Matt padding silently behind her. The bedroom door closed and they let themselves be a little louder. Matt started heating up milk in a pan while Karen got out mugs and cocoa powder. A practised routine for sleepless nights, which was starting to worry him.

“So,” he asked, feigning casualness. “What’s keeping you up? Something other than your extremely fulfilling secretarial work, I bet.”

“Oh, I don’t know. It does take up at least… a quarter of my day.” Since Fisk had been put away their days were less filled with investigative work, and more with waiting around for clients. The weeks following had been quiet.

“A whole quarter? I’m impressed.” There was a pause while Matt let Karen take over the pan, fussing good-naturedly about pouring hot liquids into small mugs, (and splashing him a little, though he didn’t mention it.) Once they were both on the sofa with a mug of steaming cocoa he tried again. “Bad dreams?”

“You have to _sleep_ to have dreams. Notice how I’m not interrogating you about the same thing?”

Matt shrugged. “Nothing to get out of me. I’m a long-seasoned insomniac, ask Foggy.”

“And how do you know I’m not?”

“You’ve slept fine in my apartment before.”

“Creep,” she said, but there was no bite to it. “It’s still just everything, Matt. It’s Mrs Cardenas and Ben and-“

“Grief,” he finished for her, and added “I understand.” Because he did, and there wasn’t much else to say. He wished he’d known them better, but part of him was glad, to be spared even a slight part of that pain he’d been through before.  Matt reached out for Karen’s hand and she took it gratefully. He didn’t ask if there was anything else. He hated listening to the people he loved lie: the way their familiar heartbeats sped up into something almost unrecognisable.

“Where do you go-“ Karen started, and then trailed off. “No, don’t worry.”

“Karen?”

“Where do you go to _talk_? Because you don’t come to us.” There was a hint of accusation in her voice, and Matt recognised the irony, asking her to talk when he wouldn’t.

“Confession,” he admitted. “And the gym.”

“You go to the gym to talk?”

“I go to the gym to _not_ talk.”

“No wonder you’re so ripped,” Karen mused. There was a pause before they both laughed, caught up in the moment. She giggled _ssh_ at him. “We’ll wake up Foggy.”

“Sorry, sorry.” He let go of her hand to rub the back of his neck. “I know I’m not exactly a bastion of good mental health.”

“I do feel a bit like the kettle being called black,” she admitted. “But I would, you know, if something was serious-“

He quirked an eyebrow. “Would you?”

“Would _you?_ ”

Matt drained his mug. “Let’s not make promises we won’t keep.” It should have felt wrong, walking back to bed with her under his arm, knowing they both had secrets. He should have felt like he could trust her less. But there was nothing bad about Karen. She was so honest in her deception that it was almost a comfort. And with Foggy, reliable Foggy curled back into his side, and Karen’s head on his chest, (finally starting to breathe peacefully into sleep,) Matt found himself able to drift off too.

 

**Author's Note:**

> This is probably going to be the first in a group of cutesy drabbles.  
> Series: guacamole, (avocados at law with something extra.)


End file.
